By Garth Calitz FlySafair takes SAA Technical to court after an Airbus A320 broke loose during a tow and collided with a parked Boeing 737 at OR Tambo There are few things more reassuring at an international airport than watching an aircraft being towed. The engines are shut down, the passengers are safely nowhere near it, the aircraft isn't flying anywhere under its own power and a tug is doing the hard work. It should, in theory, be one of the least dramatic activities taki

By Garth Calitz EASA suspends all Elixir operations following fatal Rochefort crash as investigators search for answers Elixir Aircraft, one of Europe's newer general aviation manufacturers, has been dealt a devastating blow following the death of two of its production test pilots in a crash in France on 1 October. The accident, involving an Elixir aircraft during a test flight near Rochefort-Saint-Agnant Airport in western France, has prompted an immediate grounding of the e

The Boeing 777-9 has returned to the aviation headlines for all the wrong reasons, with the aircraft's final certification campaign facing another potential delay as Boeing and GE Aerospace offer different explanations for what is holding up the start of the crucial ETOPS testing programme. Boeing says the Federal Aviation Administration has not yet authorised the start of the ETOPS flight-test campaign, with the process linked to additional work on the GE9X engine and, speci

By Garth Calitz Northrop Grumman’s YFQ-48A Talon Blue has completed its first flight, taking another major step towards a future in which autonomous aircraft operate alongside human pilots in the world’s most advanced air forces. The age of the autonomous combat aircraft has taken another step forward – and this time there was nobody sitting in the cockpit to enjoy the view. Northrop Grumman’s YFQ-48A Talon Blue completed its first flight at Mojave Air and Space Port in Calif

By Garth Calitz Airbus has officially put its newest freighter into the air, with the first A350F completing its maiden flight from Toulouse on 29 September 2026. It is a significant moment not only for Airbus but for the entire heavy air-cargo market, where Boeing has enjoyed something approaching squatter’s rights for decades. The 747 Freighter became an icon, the 777F has been enormously successful, and Airbus has never really managed to loosen Boeing’s grip on the upper e

By Garth Calitz Nothing sticks — not controversy, not court cases, not government investigations. Apparently, not even R85 million. There are companies that occasionally have a bad experience with a government tender. There are companies that have an unfortunate contract dispute. There are companies that discover, usually to their considerable annoyance, that regulators actually read the paperwork. And then there is Flyfofa. We have all heard some details about the many isola

By Pieter van der Sandt South Africa has one of Africa's richest aviation histories: a story of pioneering flights, wartime courage, ingenuity, and an enduring fascination with flight. It survives in museum aircraft and private hangars, but also in fading photographs, logbooks, letters and personal memories. Too much of that history, however, remains scattered and vulnerable. Important collections are often held privately and known only to a small circle of enthusiasts. When

Embraer’s C-390 Millennium has added another flag to its growing list of international operators, with Uzbekistan taking delivery of its first aircraft on 25 September. The handover, conducted at Embraer’s facility in Gavião Peixoto, Brazil, makes Uzbekistan the first C-390 operator in Central Asia and represents another significant step in the Brazilian manufacturer’s increasingly successful assault on the medium military transport market. The aircraft was formally handed ov

By Garth Calitz Aviation has produced plenty of aircraft that found themselves doing jobs they were never originally designed for. Agricultural aircraft became fire bombers, military transports became firefighting tankers and even airliners have occasionally found themselves converted into rather enormous flying buckets. Now, Game Aerospace is trying something different: build an aircraft specifically for fighting fires from the drawing board. The company's GB2 Stormbird comp

There is a slightly strange thing happening in South African aviation. The country's major airports are now handling almost as many passengers as they did before COVID-19 brought the aviation industry to its knees, yet there are fewer aircraft movements taking place. In other words, the passengers have largely come back, but quite a few of the aeroplanes haven't. According to Airports Company South Africa's latest figures for the financial year ending 31 March 2026, passenger